Tag Archives: Paadhai

When it’s not easy to lead a normal life, imagine how it would be to do the same if you suffered from a disorder such as OCD. OCD or the Obessive Compulsive Disorder is a condition wherein anxiety takes control over human action. A person diagnosed with an OCD would be under the compulsion of doing tasks repeatedly or have repeated thoughts, feelings or behavior patterns.

“Neon Nagaram” tells us the story of Vinay, the protagonist who suffers from this anxiety disorder and how he succeeds in life in-spite of all the challenges that life presents before him – his lady love Madhu and his career as a sound engineer taking top priority.
The novel which is in Tamil (I cannot read Tamil, so a friend translated the same to me 🙂 ) uniquely captures the ups and downs in the life of Vinay – his childhood, his confusions, his career, his quarter-life crisis – while on the other hand dealing with his survival in the music industry as he fights against plagiarism.

“Neon Nagaram” is not just a novel but its a musical-novel. The book comes along with a DVD of 17 wonderful songs expressing the moods and happenings of Vinay’s life.
Shammeer – the author who is a music composer himself – has done a wonderful job with the book as he shares what seems to be a real life story of a sound engineer. His music band Paadhai which has composed the music for the album has managed to weave the songs pretty well in a very interesting manner around the theme/story that the book encloses.

Update (5th July):NN is all set to release on the 10th of July. You can now PRE-ORDER your personal copy at FLIPKART overHERE (you get a pre-order discount too!!) 🙂

And they are back….

Paadhai is all set to unveil their second musical album (Book-Isai) and the third album overall, in the forthcoming weeks.
Early Sunday (26th June 2011) morning, they released the music cover of their latest offering “Neon Nagaram” (NN, in short)!
Below is the poster as well as the music cover of NN! 😀

(Click on picture to enlarge)

Some of the earlier posts on Paadhai:1. Ranam Sugam – Pain is Good (link).
2. I kissed her – Avalai Muththamittaen (link).
3. Songs-n-Stories of a Common Mediocre Guy @ TedxVIT (link).

They are socially friendly too. You can reach them @1. Facebook (link)
2. Twitter (@paadhaigroup)

Just a little while before the songs and the story, both unfold…A wait, you will never regret…

Being out of the city, I missed the TEDxVIT event but I was keenly following up with what my friend Shammeer (and his gang) was upto through his FB updates!Shammeer – one of the main guys in the music band “Paadhai” – was one of two speakers at TEDxVIT, who otherwise sport the Cognizant tag on working days! 😉 The other one was our beloved Sukumar! 😀 Two days back, Kavitha posted about TEDxVIT (link: HERE) covering the TED talks of Sukumar (CKO, Cognizant) and Kirubasankar (CEO of “Business Blogging“) and after reading that, I wanted to know the kind of experience that Shammeer went through. So I requested him the same. And what can I say – He responded faster than the very thought that I got to approach him! 😛

Enough of me…over to Shammeer:

My Ted Experience:

I have always been this last row guy in college who doesn’t care what happens on the stage. But then, things do change and you end up on stage from where you can see your own mind-sets in the last row. 😀 I was told to be there @ 8:30am. 8:30?!!!!!!!!! I asked. That would mean, I’ve to wake up @6am to say the least. Rude I thought. But this experience was awesome, the transition from “Careless-guy-to-atleast-act-responsible-guy”. I know I cannot be playful when I share a stage with personalities of such great experience.

Honestly, first talk of the day was boring like a geography class and that’s when Sukumar took the stage. One word. AWESOME.
That’s was the first time I listened to him and I was glad to be there. His understanding, clarity of thoughts, respecting OTHER’s time – was something I wanted to learn. I hope, I will. My talk was on ”The common mediocre guy and his dreams”.

My speech excerpt:

“IDEAs are IDEAs. There are NO big IDEAs, NO small IDEAs. NO average IDEAs. IDEAs you got, IDEAs I got…IDEAs of the last row and first row got the same respect until it comes to execution. Few live with their IDEAs. Few let their IDEAs die…and there are few others whose IDEAs are stuck under the wheels of our system…whose IDEAs cannot take a wing and fly under the heat of our system. Most of these IDEAs would be the IDEAs of the MEDIOCRE…
Paadhai or me, is not a great talent…IDEA of a musical novel by itself is out of our inability. The inability and inadequacy to make a movie got us to what we can.
We can write…first time you find an IDEA…you jump…it’s like you see your girl for the first time…the happiest moment of your life…what could not be a happy time is the time you fight to marry her. You’ve to fight against the system to win her.
That happened to us…to Ranam sugam, the musical novel. Audio companies didn’t want the book…Publishing houses didn’t want the music…this is where we were stuck…It was sad that not many in our system thought of going for a merger…probably it was because of our don’t-give-up attitude and the great time we had all along, made this all happen.
So what if a common mediocre guy comes with a great idea without a never-give-up attitude? Do we always expect him to try out ideas only after he learns to develop the never-give-up-push-to-limits attitude? And what if he doesn’t? Are we okay in missing out the idea…are we gonna let the idea die in him…oh, that would hurt him!
Okay, on the flip side we cannot expect the system to be too kind for this common mediocre guy every time he comes up with an idea. He definitely needs more than that, for sure…but what we could probably do is create a platform…build a system which doesn’t give things free, but create things for a taking…And if he wants that really badly he has to come up and take it…we just have to make things ACCESSIBLE…that is all a good-healthy system can do!
Well okay, preaching has to start from self…Paadhai would pledge to do that. So next time when a common mediocre guy comes with an idea that has something to do with a novel and music, we wanna be easily reachable to tell them what we did and help him out with whatever we can…for that execution…”

We also performed Ranam Sugam (unplugged) which got the “once more” cry from the audience. We got a standing ovation in the end which felt really good. But I thought, I could have done better. When I came home, one of my friends phoned me up and asked “How was the show?”. The first thing I said, “That girl in red was awesome, machan” Few people don’t change. 😉

“Naren, you start with the keyboard. Ramya, you too start singing along once the first stanza is over. Chandru, you start with your violin and by the time we hit the second stanza, I shall start singing. Shammeer, you just maintain your own rhythm. Okay now. All set. 1…2…3…4…” Siva explained too much about the intricacies of the second song.

So now, you know who all make up our music band. We are real life characters…yes, alive and rocking. 😀

Well…I’m what I’m. Good at what I do, but lazy and care-free. And I must confess that I was in it only for Ramya. She was the only motivation behind having these freaks at my place. For the record, she was my girl…hmm…to be…

Inside the small room on the terrace which we had set up as our practice-cum-recording room, I was standing with my keyboard just behind but next to Ramya, watching her all the while as she repeatedly set her step-cut hair behind the earlobes, giving me a clear view of her lovely face. Ah! And each time as I fell in love with her, my fingers danced on the keyboard. Bliss!

During breaks, Chandru usually would tease her about me and all that he got back from her as a reaction – was a smile. Let me tell you…there was something about her smile. Call it mysterious, MONALISA, magical, confusing or even haunting. But there was something about it…

A simple yes or a heart-breaking no, would have put things in the right place, but then no…Fate wanted me to hang on to her smile, like a cat on the wall – imagining which side to jump.

“Naren, where’s your mind loitering? Again dreaming eh? Play it on cue, dude…” on the microphone crooned Siva adding on to his ******s (that too in good rhythm, must say), as Ramya turned behind – looking at me, with the very same smile on that full-moon of a face. Ah! Bliss!

I have to admit, it was insulting. Yes, I was lost looking at her and missed more than a key. But trust me; it is hard to concentrate playing something as trivial as a well practiced note, when you have such a beautiful girl around.

Finally I delivered what they wanted, before it was time for us to pack up. Except for Ramya and Chandru, all of them left for the day. Chandru stayed back on purpose, just to irritate me (he did that, all the time…even now). There’s no swear word, I’ve left unused for him – but I’ve now come to understand that he’s kind of immune to those. As Ramya asked me for a glass of water, Chandru announced that he wanted to watch a movie. #$%^&*!!!

Cursing my fate, I went down to get her water. I saw a way out of this, as I passed by the electric switch circuit board. On the way back to the terrace, I silently slipped the main fuse into my pocket. Passing on the water to Ramya, I gave a glance at Chandru signaling him to get out immediately. Maybe guessing that my next step could prove fatal, Chandru bid us a happy goodbye. Bliss!

(I went down to see off Chandru and back on the way up, put the fuse where to it belonged.)

Ramya, too wanted to leave right after – but I held her back, by her hands and hinted that it might rain anytime. It was a sunny day, but then there are certain times when God happens to play God – and that day was one of those times. Amidst the rays of the scorching sun, it drizzled beautifully and in no time, there was a rainbow. Bliss!

“Ramya, I’ve composed something for you…and when I thought about you…I could only play on white keys of piano…for strange reasons, I just couldn’t hit on the black keys!” I made my musical move, the one with which I’m good at. With utmost concentration and closed eyes, I played for her a freshly composed tune…Oh! That feeling must say, was divine!

I opened my eyes as I ended the rendition, and found her sitting very close to me – breathing light, smiling bright. By the way she was looking at me; she seemed to be completely floored by my dedication. She told me how good the composition was, how smooth the music was and then she took a trip to her 8th standard stories…but I heard not a word…I was in my own world…I was not even aware,as I leaned forward and kissed her light, face to face.

Looking back now, it seemed to have happened so fluently…as if I was an expert…but must confess, it was my first kiss. 🙂

There was a silence…she looked down for a while, before looking INTO my eyes. I didn’t know what to say, or what to expect from her side.
All kinds of thoughts were running in my mind (of course from all the movies, I had seen till date!!)

*Will she scold me?*
*Will she curse me and leave?*
*Will she stop talking to me?*
And even an optimistic *Will she start a kiss, afresh? Wouldn’t that be a sweet revenge??!!* 🙂

The silence was about to kill me, when I heard myself say “Ramya…”
She replied “Naren…” in an even more feeble voice…

After a deep breath and a silent pause, she continued “Naren, can I have some coffee? Freshly filtered and strong, please…??“

Not having expected this (at all), I nodded my head and got her some coffee – just as she had asked for.

She seemed to enjoy her coffee, looking outside the window at the sunny rain…and I heard her whisper… “Thanks“…loud enough for me to hear…

I asked “What?”…

“Thanks”, she replied again.

Strange as it was, I asked her…”For the coffee…?”

She smiled back at me. Bliss! 🙂

***************************************************************

Note: This is the translation of the 5th chapter of the book, Ranam Sugam. Story was originally written by Shammeer in Tamil, as a third person narrative. I present it here, from Naren’s point of view.

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Me! Myself! Moi!

Though unaware, I'm usually up to something. I'm an ex-introvert who talks more than he write and writes more than he's capable of. I try to make light of everything, for I believe that I'm stuck in a dark tunnel.
All said and done, I named this blog space as 'All in the Mind...', for the very lack of it.